


The Gardeners

by Fragiledewdrop



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Flowers, Friendship, Gen, Hope, I needed more stories about their friendship so I wrote one myself, The Tolkien Decameron Project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:48:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23295016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fragiledewdrop/pseuds/Fragiledewdrop
Summary: "It began,as many lovely things begin, with a flower."Scenes from an unlikely friendship.
Relationships: Sam Gamgee & Legolas Greenleaf
Comments: 7
Kudos: 46





	The Gardeners

**Author's Note:**

> I have never really had the guts to write a Lotr fanfic, although I have several in my head, but I thought that we could all use a bit of hope in these troubled times, so here it goes! I hope it brings you a smile.

It began, as many lovey things begin, with the blooming of a flower. The gardens of Imladris were caressed by the gentlest breezes ,and the soil was rich and giving, but even elven magic and the power of Vilya could not wholly prevent the effects of the passing of the seasons. So it was that, in the golden-brown autumn when the Council of Elrond was held, Samwise Gamgee found himsef staring open-mouthed at a primrose.

“You saw it too, then, master Gamgee.”

Sam was so startled he almost fell over. A merry laugh greeted his surprise. “Up here”, the voice said. Sam looked up. Among the golden foliage of the beech under which he had been contmplating a flower for the better part of an hour, like normal folks do, was the strange silvan elf that had spoken with such regret of Gollum’s escape from his forest. Sam turned beet red. “I am sorry, master Legolas, Sir. I didn’t mean to pry or disturb you or nothing. It’s just that...”

“Primroses don’t bloom in late October?”

“Yes, exactly. I have known of gardeners who have managed to make them last until September, or well, my Gaffer has, but never this long! And if it’s just blooming _now_ , smack in the middle of autumn, well then, sir, I really don’t know what to make of it. And…” He was rambling. Suddenly his feet seemed really interesting.

Legolas landed at his side with barely a sound. Sam coud have sworn the grass did not bend underneath his feet. “You are quite right. It is astonishing. It’s the reason I am here myself, actually.”

Sam almost pulled something with how fast he turned around.

“You are here _for a flower_ , sir?”

Legolas smiled. “Well, what did you think I was doing?”

Sam just shook his head. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking. He knew nothing of big people’s business, least of all elves’. But flowers? _That_ he knew about.

“So you know, sir? You know how it is that it is blooming now, and not in spring when it belongs?”

“Indeed I do. I noticed the plant while wandering the gardens, and I may have…” he seemed embarassed now.It was quite strange to see an elf so flustered. “I may have tended to it”

“Tended to it?”

“Yes. Taking care of the soil, coaxing it out of the earth, singing to it and the like.”

“You can make flowers bloom by _singing_ to them?”

The elf tilted his head in confusion,like what he had just said was perfectly sensible and Sam was the one who had been talking gibberish.

“Yes” he said “Why? Don’t you sing to your plants?”

“Why would I?”

“How do you get them to grow, then?”

“Why! With manure and trimming and weeding…” and then Sam was gone, lost in the intricacies of his trade, no longer intimidated in the least by the fact that he was talking to an elf, and an important one at that.

For his part, Legolas smiled and asked all the right questions, sharing some of the ways his people tended to all things that grew in their once green forest, deeply interested in the little Hobbit that was called Half- Wise, but knew more about how to care for life than most of the great lords he had met.

And if while the afternoon tumbled into a violet evening Sam stopped calling his new friend “sir”, neither of them seemed to care or even notice.

When they finally left under the light of the first stars, Legolas cast a last, longing glance at the little white flower. “A primrose.” He said. “The first flower of spring. It is a good omen, here and now, in the winter of the world.”

“A fool’s hope, Gandalf would call it”

“You’ll find, master Gamgee, that sometimes no one is wiser than a fool.”

* * *

Moria was dark and heavy with the smell of death. Sam could feel the mountain weighing on his shoulders, and it drove nearly all the air out of his lungs. But at least he was a Hobbit, born to live in a hole in the ground- albeit a much cozier one, thank you. He looked at Legolas. He didn’t sweat or swear, but he was paler than usual, his eyes downcast, his step uncertain. He lived underground too, Sam had learned, but still in a forest. During all their time together not a day had gone by in which the elf had not caressed a plant or sung to it or inhaled its scent, even in the most barren of landscapes. It was as breathing air to him, Sam suspected, and if _he_ felt he was chocking under the weight of the naked stone, then…

Something caught his eye. Without hesitation he turned around, grabbed a startled Legolas by the hand and dragged him to a corner of the wall they were passing by.

“What-“said Legolas. Then he stopped. The wall was covered in lichens, green and blue, some of them almost fluorescent. Sam pressed his friend’s hand against the living growth. “There is always something alive, master Legolas. Even here, in the belly of the earth.”

A small smile could be seen on Legolas’s face after that, by those who cared to look.

* * *

All battles had ended and a new world was born, and yet Sam couldn’t sleep. When he closed his eyes he saw smoke and fire, he tasted ash and the death of all things.

There was a knock at his door, so light he almost thought he had imagined it. “Master Samwise? Are you awake tonight too?”

He did not ask how Legolas knew he had not been sleeping lately. He just got up and joined him at the door. Legolas smiled. “Follow me.”

Sam did, and he shortly found himself in the courtyard, staring at a tree long since dead. Unsure of what good looking at further lack of life would do,he turned to ask, but Legolas’s voice stopped him.

“Don’t look at the tree. Look at the grass.”

And there, under the light of the stars, he saw a carpet of small daisies. The little flowers held more light to him than their sisters in the sky, and he felt his eyes fill with tears.

“They are the first”said Legolas, “The first flowers of spring. The earth promised two fools something, once, with a primrose. That promise has now been fulfilled.”

The tears started to fall. Sam felt a reassuring hand on his shoulder, but kept his eyes trained on the daisies.

“Not many flowers in Mordor, I take it.” Legolas joked. Sam let out a wet laugh. “No. Not at all. One could almost forget such lovely things existed”

“But you didn’t forget.” came the sure reply.

Sam thought back on a lonely desperate moment, and a song about beeches with stars in their hair.

“No,”he said, “no, I never really did.”

“You’ll se many more flowers grow. You’ll make them grow yourself, Samwise Gamgee. And I will too. We’ll make this land bloom, because that’s who we are.”

“We are gardeners” said Sam.

“Aye. We are gardeners.”

They stood side by side, watching the daises until dawn.

* * *

There was a house in the shire that often had a silent visitor who arrived by night, or in the grey early hours of the morning. He would stand in the garden and sing to flowers and vegetables and trees, and they all seemed to grow brighter, livelier,stronger. The visitor, who carried the torturous call of the sea in his heart, found a haven of peace in his friend’s little house. They talked little and worked a lot, weeding and seeding and trimming, and staring and singing.

And if they exchanged small knowing smiles every time Sam called out to his daughters Primrose and Daisy, nobody else noticed, nor would they have understood. It was foolish, perhaps, but sometimes there’s no one wiser than a fool.

And no one is better at rebuilding a world than a gardener.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> The end :) I am @fragiledewdrop on tymblr if you want to come say hi.


End file.
